Little Falls transcript., 1887-06-03
LIEUT. dREEL rs SURF

LIEUT.. 9REEI I ( sOR RRlsE. s.
HE'S ALWAYS spRlNGING QUEER WEATH.
ER Or lAvEN IONS ON THE nc. S
q Suffering Citizen Tries to Get Square by
Exposing q Dark Secret Of the Leutenant's
Texas Filling Telegraph Insulators
with Hornets and Turning on the Warm
Weather Faucet Angry Linemen.
/ suppose that Brig Gen. and Chief
Signal Officer Adolphus Weather-pro-
phet Greedy thought he was very funny
when he sent that Lapland blizzard
over here Monday to put us all in
congestive chill. If so, would like to
inform him privately that his reputa-
ton as humorist in this town will get
a chronic case of mango if he infests
US with another joke of that kind It
may be that the Generals meteorol ogy
got a little mildewed during the several
pleasant seasons he spent at the North
Pole, and that he tn nks it Is the proper
caper to give the country January
freeze-out in the midst of an April
thaw; or, perhaps. he contracted lik-
ing for Esquimaux climate, aud prefers
his balmy and ethereal spring trimmed
with unexpected and suporduous bursts
of blue-nosed weather, but I can tell
him that when the average Citizen-at-
work is pining for early lies and as
paragus, he doesn't enjoy stopping
around in wet feet or going with chat
tering teeth to premature grave.
Easter Sunday Gen. Greedy was all
right. He gave US clear, millinery
weather and plenty of it, and although
several dozen of our most beautiful
dudes were wilted by the heat, no one
ventured complaint. But after this
tropical touch. what did he mean by
sending out such measly, Virgins
bill of tare as this:
''For the 7,aszdle atlantic States, biz
cards, cyclones, frost, s1so,v, rain, hail,
sleet, e0ith local areas of sl4sh; rising,
falling or stationary barometer; aviasd
N. E., S. W., or calan.''
Does he think that after giving us
sunburn and freckles, and getting us out
of ulsters and in the way of juleps and
other straw punishment, this is nice
sort of thing to practise on long suffer-
ing community? Are we going to have
any sudden brigadiers swelling around
and trifling with our holiest rights in
this wanton and piratical manner? Is
this his idea of fun, raising merry Cain
all over the country with his low-down
Manitoba episodes, when the humble
citizen wants to wear blue necktie
and 60 fishing? The weather last
week was pretty good for bullfrogs but
that's the best that can be said of 1t.
I hate to tell tales out of school, but
if Gen. Greedy doesn't tone down his
ideas of spring a little I will narrate an
incident of his brief career in Texas.
He came down there in November,
1875, to build telegraph line to San
Antonio from Fort Brown. He had an
insulator which he and other experts
had gotten up in Washington especial
ly for this line. 1t consisted simply OF
well-lacquered sheet-lron cap over a
dry wood screw, and had the general
appearance of a tomoto can on the end
of broomstick when in position.
Well, the line was built-4O0
miles of it-and for two weeks or a
month it worked like dream. Sud-
denly warm weather came along, and
when warm weather strikes the lower
Rio Grande it takes hold for keeps.
The thermometer crawled up to 100, and
after several weeks of this spell the line
began to get mysterious kinks in it.
There was trouble somewhere, and
plenty of it. The line wasn't down,
but it seemed to have lost it's grip on
through messages. San Antonio had to
do it's business with Fort Brown by re-
laying at Laredo. In few days Lare-
do could only telegraph as far as Ring
gold Barracks, south. or to Fort Clarke,
north, and through messages from San
Antonio to Fort Brown had to stop off
three times en- route and take rest. At
the end of week the trouble was
worse yet. Lieut.. Greely-he was
plain lieutenant then-sent couriers
galloping up and down the whole cir
cult. They couldn't find place where
the wire was down or in contact with
trees or anything: Bat they reported
something queer with insulators.
Lieut.. Greedy was wild with indignant
surprise. The idea of an ''insulator"
going wrong which had been concoct-
ed in Washington especially for Texas!
Still the telegraph line wasn't working
my better as a telegraph line than as
! fish-line or a clothes-line, so he bor-
pwed a mule from the quartermaster
Ind started out to investigate. He.
same back in light marching order
that evening with sad secret in his
heart and several infamed Jumps ON
his countenance, and minus the way
ward army mule. The simple truth
was that the Texan hornets, who are
II ;ff1ooc or1 1oyu honc%, <Eor,bA <bo